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Let's Talk About Monster Stats!

Howdy!

Senior systems designer and resident AI scripter here… I’m going to be assigning monsters their stats as well as their abilities/behaviors going forward, so in the same vein as Dr. Octothorpe’s loot post, you can now call me Dr. Frankenstein!

I’d like to take this opportunity to query the community for an up-to-date feel for how y’all perceive the current state of monster stats.

Some of the primary concerns that we see brought up on the forums are:
1. Monster DC saves in 20+ content, and specifically in epic elite
2. Monster hitpoints in 20+ content
3. Monster damage when playing builds/classes that don’t have a ton of hit avoidance built in, and spike damage when you just get unlucky

While it appears that y’all don’t agree on all of the details, there is enough discussion about these topics that we’d like to take a fresh look and identify the priority/scope of your concerns so any time spent addressing monster stats is focused on the right places. Are there any other areas of concern you’d like to see at the top of the list? Are there any more details you can give us in regard to the top 3 I just mentioned?
*Disclaimer* I can’t promise this discussion will lead to any large adjustments in the next update, but It will help inform the direction of monster stats going forward!

I’d love to hear about your builds, the numbers you can reasonably hit in regards to spell/ tactical feat DCs, and the monsters/difficulties you can’t affect with your build that you feel you should be able to.
What is your DC on death spells? What about CC spells/abilities? How much damage potential have you given up in order to reach those DCs and how specialized is your build? What do your DCs look like on builds where you haven’t sacrificed any damage?

For future development, we’re also looking into new ways to amp up the difficulty of monsters in high-level content to provide a challenge without overly-inflating their stats.
Instead, we’re exploring ways other than damage and hitpoints to buff them which you can then overcome with equipment and smart use of abilities. Please share your ideas on this subject as well! I’m hoping to continue to make them smarter, scale more smoothly, have more abilities available, and work together in groups better, so please share ideas for AI as well as stats!

Senior systems designer and resident AI scripter here… I’m going to be assigning monsters their stats as well as their abilities/behaviors going forward, so in the same vein as Dr. Octothorpe’s loot post, you can now call me Dr. Frankenstein!

I’d like to take this opportunity to query the community for an up-to-date feel for how y’all perceive the current state of monster stats.

Some of the primary concerns that we see brought up on the forums are:
1. Monster DC saves in 20+ content, and specifically in epic elite
2. Monster hitpoints in 20+ content
3. Monster damage when playing builds/classes that don’t have a ton of hit avoidance built in, and spike damage when you just get unlucky

While it appears that y’all don’t agree on all of the details, there is enough discussion about these topics that we’d like to take a fresh look and identify the priority/scope of your concerns so any time spent addressing monster stats is focused on the right places. Are there any other areas of concern you’d like to see at the top of the list? Are there any more details you can give us in regard to the top 3 I just mentioned?
*Disclaimer* I can’t promise this discussion will lead to any large adjustments in the next update, but It will help inform the direction of monster stats going forward!

I’d love to hear about your builds, the numbers you can reasonably hit in regards to spell/ tactical feat DCs, and the monsters/difficulties you can’t affect with your build that you feel you should be able to.
What is your DC on death spells? What about CC spells/abilities? How much damage potential have you given up in order to reach those DCs and how specialized is your build? What do your DCs look like on builds where you haven’t sacrificed any damage?

For future development, we’re also looking into new ways to amp up the difficulty of monsters in high-level content to provide a challenge without overly-inflating their stats.
Instead, we’re exploring ways other than damage and hitpoints to buff them which you can then overcome with equipment and smart use of abilities. Please share your ideas on this subject as well! I’m hoping to continue to make them smarter, scale more smoothly, have more abilities available, and work together in groups better, so please share ideas for AI as well as stats!

Looking forward to reading your ideas/feedback!

This is how I see it. You should be able to max out your DC effort on EE so that it lands reliably (say 80 of the time) - after all if you go the way of TRing and getting really good skills and gear it should be like you're rewarded for the effort.

Second, this is many time a question of class. Meaning that some classes can manage to get an amazing amount in DC for what they're doing and others are out of luck. Like arti's - there's a reason why arti's gravitate towards force and acid. Because it's 'homing' bolts from the rune arm and there's no save like on almost all other upper end rune arms. Worst; there's no way to boost the acid spell power enhancement line so in the end the only viable rune arm is the force one.
It's simply near impossible to boost any other rune arm so much (such as the fire based ones) to hit and not be saved. The dilemma is therefore one several choices being reduced down to one. Arguably this DC issue boils down to one of casters and such and not so much Arti's but I wanted to throw that in there too. Arti's are pretty much skunked by the time you hit 20. I can't do much as far as EE goes to get my tactical detonations and anything else other than acid and force to hit.

I think the silliest effect of this can be seen fighting things like zombies. Saving nearly everything. Or when you knock something down (with tactical deto it's not considered prone) and they can still save. I makes no sense. EE = massive stat inflation, so much so you create super saving HP bags.

As unpopular as all this could be, at least it could get people to group up again, rather than simply Shiradi/Monkcher their way through.

However, keep the loot BETTER for doing Epic Elites. Otherwise, what's the point?

As to the saves, I can live with it, but past lives shouldn't be required to do it, they should give you a small edge. So decrease the saves by 3-4 to be fair, but not more than that. Don't make Epic Elites a walk in the park either.

ps: also fix the exploit on monkchers. People are even allowed to put screenshot of them with the exploit and nothing happens as a side effect of it either...

Can you tell us what the fort saves are on EE enemies in stormhorns? Because the max DC for a necro wizard as of today is around 70 and that doesn't cut it in stormhorns. Debuffs are often touted as the answer but in my opinion that is a waste of resources in stormhorns. It's easier for me to just switch to shiradi.

Do monster saves scale with party size? In other words are the saves less with 2 people than it is with 6? I've heard this was the case but can't confirm it. If so I think monster saves shouldn't scale since DC has nothing to do with party size.

This isn't a complaint by the way. The enhancement pass changes allow me to use more tools when my DC isn't effective. I love that I can use the archamage tree with my pale master.

Well, there's a named hill giant in one of the stormhorn quests who guards a barrier you have to pass, so you have to kill him. On epic hard (not EE!) he has...80,000 hit points.

That's kind of silly.

The General Manager has 150k Hp or thereabouts on EE and 75k on EH! {These were noted whilst I was in FULL 6 man Groups - The EE run wiped! - The EH run was in a different group about 10 hrs later and 3 Lvls later!}

And this is in what's generally agreed to be amongst the 3 easiest Epic Quests along with Snitch and Lords of Dust!

These numbers are frankly insane!

They need halving at a minimum!

Then work from there as you move up the levels {or down}.

With Stormhorns being Lvl 25+ Content I actually feel your example makes what I've seen in the past 2 days even worse!

Wow and Thank you

I really think this is something needed...I'll personally try to put some time toward this topic to provide input on this thread...may take me a few days or weeks :-)

Thanks No_Dice !!!

Originally Posted by No_Dice

Howdy!

Senior systems designer and resident AI scripter here… I’m going to be assigning monsters their stats as well as their abilities/behaviors going forward, so in the same vein as Dr. Octothorpe’s loot post, you can now call me Dr. Frankenstein!

I’d like to take this opportunity to query the community for an up-to-date feel for how y’all perceive the current state of monster stats.

Some of the primary concerns that we see brought up on the forums are:
1. Monster DC saves in 20+ content, and specifically in epic elite
2. Monster hitpoints in 20+ content
3. Monster damage when playing builds/classes that don’t have a ton of hit avoidance built in, and spike damage when you just get unlucky

While it appears that y’all don’t agree on all of the details, there is enough discussion about these topics that we’d like to take a fresh look and identify the priority/scope of your concerns so any time spent addressing monster stats is focused on the right places. Are there any other areas of concern you’d like to see at the top of the list? Are there any more details you can give us in regard to the top 3 I just mentioned?
*Disclaimer* I can’t promise this discussion will lead to any large adjustments in the next update, but It will help inform the direction of monster stats going forward!

I’d love to hear about your builds, the numbers you can reasonably hit in regards to spell/ tactical feat DCs, and the monsters/difficulties you can’t affect with your build that you feel you should be able to.
What is your DC on death spells? What about CC spells/abilities? How much damage potential have you given up in order to reach those DCs and how specialized is your build? What do your DCs look like on builds where you haven’t sacrificed any damage?

For future development, we’re also looking into new ways to amp up the difficulty of monsters in high-level content to provide a challenge without overly-inflating their stats.
Instead, we’re exploring ways other than damage and hitpoints to buff them which you can then overcome with equipment and smart use of abilities. Please share your ideas on this subject as well! I’m hoping to continue to make them smarter, scale more smoothly, have more abilities available, and work together in groups better, so please share ideas for AI as well as stats!

I'm of the mind that a maxed DC insta-killer should be able to land an insta-kill reliably on ANYTHING with a single Energy Drain + FoD/Destruction. Lower fort-save mobs shouldn't require the debuff and there should be SOME mobs which are prohibitively hard to kill like the Stormhorns Orcs but it should be rare. ED+ FoD is about 100 Spell Points . . . that's a big opportunity cost to remove 1 mob from the board every 8 seconds.

Are my expectations unreasonable?

I don't think they are. If for no other reason Turbine historically has fixed imbalances such as this with massive player buffs that breaks things in content where it was previously balance, next thing we know we're in the current state where we are now where necro casters are god-mode everywhere EXCEPT EE Stormhorns.

The General Manager has 150k Hp or thereabouts on EE and 75k on EH! {These were noted whilst I was in FULL 6 man Groups - The EE run wiped! - The EH run was in a different group about 10 hrs later and 3 Lvls later!}

And this is in what's generally agreed to be amongst the 3 easiest Epic Quests along with Snitch and Lords of Dust!

These numbers are frankly insane!

No, they are not.

Originally Posted by FranOhmsford

They need halving at a minimum!

No, you need to build better toons and run with better people.

Sorry, this is gonna **** some people off but it is true. Go into the EEs with 4 toons that are actually good DPS toons and you will see the HP are reasonable for our inflated damage outputs.

HOWEVER . . . go in to high level EEs with a bunch of mooks in Sentinel . . . . ARRRGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!! The pain!!!! it's friggin horrible. And stupidly Turbine has crafted an "end-game" where the best practice IS TO SPEND THE MAJORITY OF YOUR TIME IN A GIMPED ED.

This is a problem as early as Lvl 10 - Sands Slayer Zone and Scorrow Raiders {NOT the Casters!} spamming Dispel usually starting before they even become visible meaning that even at Max Lvl for said slayer zone {15} you still won't get through them with your buffs intact! {Usually with No Buffs left after just one encounter!}.

There's a number of Spells which work far better for mobs in this game than for us due to:
a) 50-300 mobs vs 1-6 of us
b) mobs having unlimited spell pools and being able to constantly spam the same spells over and over again till we inevitably roll a one
c) multiple mobs spamming the same spell
d) Mobs HP pools and Saves being inflated due to CRs far above those that we can have at the lvl of the quest {or even at a level where we're still getting a little xp from said quest for Elite Boss mobs who usually are between 7-10 CR Levels above the quest level! - On Epic Elite this CR Bloat becomes truly ridiculous!}.
e) what works on one player {or even a group of 12 players who have a finite number of HP/SPs and Standard to Good Saves} isn't going to have the same effect on a group of 6 mobs with inflated HP and Saves
when you know the next 6 are just round the corner with another 10 after them, then 7 more followed by a Massive Boss fight!
f)inally - Many Spells are suffering from being tuned to PnP levels rather than DDO levels!
DDO has highly inflated Mob CRs that make these spells pretty much useless unless you've fully specced to use them and only them WHILST the Fighter/Ranger or Barbarian can simply keep Cleaving/Imp Precise Shot Manyshotting etc.
For Wizards and Sorcs this isn't too big an issue as they have ample choices for 3 schools - Necro, Enchant, Evoc or the four elements.
But for Clerics/Souls it's a Big Issue what with being behind on DCs/Spell Pen already and then knowing that whichever Sphere you do specialize in {IF you can spare the feat in the first place!} you'll only be able to boost the chances with 2 or 3 of your spells at max!
You wonder why Rangers don't bother with Entangle? It's because they have no way whatsoever to get a Viable DC for it!

Sorry, this is gonna **** some people off but it is true. Go into the EEs with 4 toons that are actually good DPS toons and you will see the HP are reasonable for our inflated damage outputs.

HOWEVER . . . go in to high level EEs with a bunch of mooks in Sentinel . . . . ARRRGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!! The pain!!!! it's friggin horrible. And stupidly Turbine has crafted an "end-game" where the best practice IS TO SPEND THE MAJORITY OF YOUR TIME IN A GIMPED ED.

Who the hell though this was good game design?

I'm talking about E-BoB!!!
NOT High Level Epic Elites!!!

I joined the EE group on my then Lvl 20 1st life Cleric in Exalted Angel knowing that all I was going to be able to contribute to the group was Heals. {Melee DPS being negligible and about a 25% chance to Destruct or Implode anything meaning 200 SPs per kill!}

Later on after running the entire VoN chain, Red Fens and Tide Turns on E-Hard I went back into E-BoB this time on EH rather than EE and with an entirely different group from said EE run and noticed that the General Manager still had 75k HP {it was 150 on EE!}

Now I could be wrong but I thought that Elites were supposed to be quite a bit more than double the difficulty of Hard in this game and was expecting HP of around the 30k mark for said Boss in Said EH Quest!
For EE 75k Would be about right!
Now we had 0 issues with him on E-Hard even with those 75k HP - He wasn't hard to take down just time consuming! - Up his DPS if you like, Up his Trip DCs if you want to be sadistic Just DROP the Ridiculous HP totals!

The HP aren't an issue when you can stun/hold/overwhelming-forc/pin/whistle/nerve venom every trash mob you see. Seriously, real-DPS toons chew them up with all the stuff we get from horcness, no mercy, sense weakness, teir 5 thingy from LD, etc . . .

CC'd mobs also cannot hit back, thus it is the best form of damage mitigation. As I'll pontificate below mobs just hit too damaged hard and our defense system leaves a lot to be desired. CC'ing mobs is critical to survival.

Some classes in ED have easyish means of CCd. Kensai with high stunning blow DC, monks, Tempest Rangers in Fury for Overwhelming force, casterss . . . bring one of those in EEs and you are fine. BUT if you're current setup, often being run because of the ******** karma farming, isn't synergistic with this it just plain sucks.

Our helpless damage probably shouldn't be as much as it is . . . and it shouldn't be necessary to make mobs helpless. other options should be more viable.

The defensive system is a friggin joke.

it really is, the biggest issue is "Tanks" are complete worthless gimps 99% of the time with not nearly as much damage mitigation that they should have in relation to their lack of DPS.

This is a topic for a whole other thread but we need a second defensive pass.

Casting Divines are gimps.

The whole game's dynamic fell apart right before EGH. There was always an un-written rule that it was okay for Divines to be a little over-powered because with that power came the resonsibilty of healing the melees. Next thing we know a maxed implosion DC can't kill squat and incoming damage is so high that you couldn't power-heal people through stuff if you wanted to.

This leads to the rise of the BYOH FoTM builds because it's really the only option. Good or bad . . . fewer viable options makes for a weaker game.

Mobs hit too hard in EE

In other news the sun rises in the east, water is wet, and trolls DO NOT have nipples. biggest issue is this lowers the pool of viable builds. You pretty much need to be able to survive 2-3 hits and be able to hjeal yourself to full with the press of a button. A lower pool of viable builds is bad for DDO.

Mob casting DCs are retardedly high.

It's gotten friggin ridiculous, we should NOT have to splash paladin in order to make more than 5% of our saves. I'm sorry but this is just friggin stupid. Nerf Divine Grace to make it a resistance bonus unless you have like 8 levels of pally and lower the caster DCs. That 70ish DC Flesh to Stone in WGU is a death sentence to most who don't use certain borderline exploits to achieve god-mode.

Divine might

If you don't have this drop stunning blow. I'm sorry it's broken that this is needed for a Kensai to get viable stunning as you cannot get your DC high enough any other way. Divine might should be nerfed to a straight damage bonus (this also un-screws DEX and CON-based people) and the Stunning blow formula should be re-worked to not require sure a high STR if you have everything else boosting it. And while you're at it the Stunning blow 15 second cooldown is stupid since Stunning fist is only 6 seconds. that could lead to another P2W monk tirade . . .
A few insanely stupid encounters . . .

There is no way in hell EE Thrill of the Hunt was play tested. I don't believe that for one second. Sure, it's easy to beat if you're a cheesy bastard but it still an insanely stupid encounter.

Why put junk like this in the game? You done this for so long . . . starting with the early epics which were so stupid you pretty much had to cheat to beat them. You know what that got you? And exploitive culture. When you put stupid encounters in the game where the best practice for beating them is ******** you get a game culture where people get numb to exploitative play.
Dumb **** in raids.

The SP drain in CiTW is ********. Whoever thought that was a good idea should be fired. Same with the "traps" in FOT . . . kill an undead mob and it exploits for more HP than any toon has? Seriously if you have to resort to such cheap garbage to add challenge find a new line of employment.

I'm sure I'll have more later, but the halflings are finished roasting and I need some lunch.

So you're concerned about the range between low and high saves, or more specifically, the "weak" saves not feeling low enough (brutes having too much will, casters having too much fort, etc...)

Dispel is definitely something we'd like to look at as well

I'd suggest that you make sure each mob has one save that is at least 10-15 points below the other two.
Arcanes having low Fort {WF Arcanes having low Reflex instead}
Divines having low Reflex
Melees having low Will {Rogues/Artis having low Fort instead}

As for Dispel - Stop using the Mob's CR as it's Level! - Halve it + Round Up so that for a mob with CR 17 it's actual DC bonus is 9 to add to it's base 10 so a DC of 19 instead of 27!

Oh and this next goes for Anti-Magic fields too - I'm disappointed that you've seemingly decided that everyone who had SLAs has been exploiting for the past 7 years.
BUT
I'd happily accept said change IF you made Spell Resistance actually work to stop Dispel effects incl Anti-Magic from removing our Buffs!

P.S. Look at the numbers you've imposed on Spell Resistance and the levels we can get those numbers at and use that as your Baseline for Mobs DCs!

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